Now, thought Cara. Now is the time to tell her how normal it is to have doubts and fears and panic attacks. Tell her about the hairless Chihuahua bride, or the girl who lost so much weight her mother ended up force-feeding her Ensure every day for two weeks before the wedding. Tell her this is all perfectly normal, and then drag her butt back to Savannah and collect her daddy’s check.
“The wedding is still two weeks off,” Cara pointed out. “Maybe if you come home, let Harris know that you’re feeling confused and unsettled, or speak to a therapist, go to couple’s counseling or something, you’ll realize that this is all just a severe case of pre-wedding jitters.”
“Is that what you’d do?” Brooke asked, regarding Cara carefully. “If you were me, knowing what you know about what I’m feeling and what I’ve done, would you go back to Savannah and go through with the wedding anyway?”
“Dammit, that is not a fair question,” Cara said.
“Sure it is. You’ve been married. And divorced. You’ve seen what, a couple hundred weddings up close and personal? You’re battle-scarred. So tell me, what would you do?”
“I guess … I guess maybe I’d try to find a graceful way out of this mess. There’s no way to do this without hurting people you care about, but from what you’ve told me, I don’t think you should marry Harris. Not now, anyway.”
Brooke nodded and reached over and squeezed Cara’s hands. “Thank you for being honest with me. And for not ratting me out to anybody.”
“You have to talk to Harris right away,” Cara said. “He’s in agony. And so is your mom.”
“I know. And my dad too.” She winced. “What’s Dad’s reaction to all this drama?”
“He was getting ready to hire a private detective to track you down and bring you home, but your mother managed to talk him out of it,” Cara said.
“That sounds like Warden Gordon, all right.”
They both laughed, and then Brooke stood up and dusted off the seat of her shorts. She pulled Cara to her feet, too.
“Will you go back with me? And talk to Harris face-to-face?” Cara asked, as Brooke lowered herself onto the top rung of the foot ladder.
Brooke hesitated, then shook her head. “I can’t. If I go back, Harris will probably succeed in talking me into going through with the wedding. And I just can’t risk that. It’s the coward’s way out, I know.”
Cara dropped her backpack to the ground, and then climbed down after Brooke.
“What will you do?” Cara asked. “Savannah’s a pretty small town. It’s going to cause quite a stir when word gets out that you jilted Harris.”
“Ow,” Brooke said. “Jilted. It sounds so cruel.”
“I tell it like I see it,” Cara replied. “Remember, it’s not just Harris who’s going to be devastated. You say his sister is your best friend, and his parents adore you … I’m not trying to guilt-trip you, Brooke, but you need to be aware of what the consequences will be. For everybody involved.”
“I’m fully aware,” Brooke said calmly. “I borrowed Pete’s computer and emailed my boss this morning and resigned from the law firm. Cell-phone service here most days seems to depend on which way the wind is blowing. I guess maybe I’ll catch the ferry back with you this afternoon and try to call Harris tonight, when he gets home from work. I need to get some more clean clothes from my car, anyway. I’ll call Mom and Dad too.”
“Attagirl,” Cara said. “And then what?”
Brooke shrugged. “Who knows? I can’t stay with Pete too much longer, that’s for sure. Park Service regulations.” She made a face. “I do love it down here, though. I’d like to see if I could rent one of the little caretaker’s cottages on the north end for two or three months. Just hang out and chill. See if I can make my brain and body slow down long enough to enjoy life. I want to spend fall on the island. It’s my favorite time to be on Cumberland. Mom knows people, so maybe she could get me the hookup.”
“And after the fall?” Cara asked. They were walking in the direction of Loblolly, where Cara had left her bike. The horses were gone now, and the sky had started to cloud up.
Brooke wasn’t listening. She was looking down at the spot Cara had excavated, and in the next moment, she was kneeling on the ground, brushing sand away from the Loblolly threshold. “Hmm?”
Cara walked her bike over. “I said, what will you do after the fall? How will you make a living?”
Brooke looked up. “I’ll figure that out, right after I figure out me. Who knows? Maybe I’ll hang up a shingle in St. Marys. There must be somebody over there who needs suing, right?”
“Right.”
A wide, mischievous grin lit up Brooke’s face. “I’ll start with the Park Service.”
61
Bert was seated on the living-room floor in what looked like the lotus position, his hands palm-up, resting lightly on his knees. He opened his eyes when he heard Cara come clomping up the steps from the shop.
“How did it go?” he asked. “Did you manage to lasso the runaway bride?”
“No.” Cara dropped her backpack on the floor and collapsed onto the sofa. Poppy took that as the signal to rest her muzzle in Cara’s lap, nudging Cara’s hand until she obliged with a head scratch.
“The wedding is off. Brooke called Harris and her parents this afternoon to let them know where she is and to say that she’s not coming back.”
“Oh, wow. Major bummer.”
Cara looked idly around the room. Bert had managed to pack up everything from her bookshelves, and now boxes lined the living-room wall. “What exactly are you doing?” she asked.
“Yoga. My AA sponsor says sober means sober, so no more drugs. He says the yoga will help with keeping me grounded and quitting the weed.”
“Sounds good. How long have you been doing yoga?”
“Counting this morning, twice. It’s very relaxing. You should try it.”
“Maybe later,” Cara said.
“Was Brooke shacked up with the geeky ranger like you figured?” he asked.
“She’s staying with him, but not sleeping with him. And she swears that calling off the wedding is not about the strip club or the geeky ranger or even about torturing her father and stepmother. I think she basically wants to hit the reset button with her life.”
“Hmm.” Bert slid forward with his hands under his shoulders, straightening his legs, lowering his head, and pointing his butt toward the sky. He held the pose for only a few seconds before dropping back onto the floor. “Ugh! Now I remember why I hate the Downward Dog pose. It makes all the snot run out my eyeballs.”
“Just out of curiosity, how are you learning yoga? Are you going to class?”
“Nah. Classes cost money, and I don’t like the idea of being in the same room with a lot of stinky, sweaty women. I just watch YouTube videos.”
“Makes sense. By the way, thanks for packing up all the stuff, Bert. I was dreading coming home to face that. But mostly I was dreading coming home without Brooke in tow.”
“I really thought you would pull this one off, Cara. I was sure if you found Brooke you’d be able to talk her into going through with things.”
“Me too. I even had a brilliant five-point plan worked out.”
“What happened?”
“I was outgunned. So that’s it. No humongous two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar wedding means no humongous check. Patricia called me to make that perfectly clear. I called most of our vendors during the drive back from St. Marys. Everybody’s disappointed. Nobody more so than me. I’ll have to talk to the Colonel in the morning to break the bad news. He’s going to pop a vein when I tell him I can’t send the rest of his money the way I promised.”
“He called today, by the way.”
“My dad?”
“Yup.” Bert got up and handed her a stack of pink message slips from the console table. “He tried calling your cell phone too, but said the calls wouldn’t go through.”
“Thank God for crappy reception on that island.
I don’t think I could have dealt with talking with the Colonel today. Wait a minute. How’d he get my cell number?”
“Not from me,” Bert said.
Cara shook her head, then held up the other message slips. “Who are all these people? I don’t recognize the names.”
“Ahhh. Well, it seems your former nemesis Lillian Fanning has transformed herself into your own personal patron saint. The top three slips are all from brides or mothers of the brides wanting an appointment to talk wedding flowers, and two of them said Lillian referred them. The third girl, Taylor Vickers, and her mom, you’re seeing tomorrow at eleven because she just had a tragic breakup with her former florist, and the wedding is only three weeks away.”
“What florist did she break up with?” Cara asked.
“Some old mean queen named Cullen Kane.”
“What! Bert, I appreciate your trying to make things up to me, but I do not want to be poaching Cullen Kane’s clients.”
“It’s not poaching,” he assured her. “I met Taylor while I was um, seeing Cullen. You know he wines and dines all these brides when he’s trying to get them to commit, but she just discovered he’s doing another big wedding the same date and time as hers, at a church across town, and when you meet Taylor’s mama, you’ll understand that she is not having a florist double-book on her date. I ran into Taylor at Whole Foods this morning, and she remembered me and told me the whole sad story. I might have slipped her one of your business cards. Not an hour later, her mama called here.”
“You are shameless,” Cara said.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I told the other two brides you’d call them in the morning. This one”—he plucked the top slip and waved it in front of her—“is from the general manager of that new boutique hotel that opens at the end of July in the old Kresge’s store downtown on Broughton Street.”
“The Ibis? Did he say what he wanted?”
“She would like to discuss your developing a signature floral look for the hotel. I told her Wednesday noon would be good for you.”
“Here? She can’t come here. The shop is going to be all torn up. We’ve got to be of here by Friday. And we’ve got to finish up all the stuff for that beach wedding Saturday.…”
“Relax,” Bert said. “Deep, cleansing breaths. In, out. Release the tension. You’re meeting her at their new lobby restaurant. She’d like you to bring along some concepts, which I told her you’d be pleased to do.”
“Concepts? I can’t just come up with a whole look out of thin air by Wednesday. I don’t know anything…”
Bert grasped her by the shoulders. “I got this. Okay? I went online and looked at the chain’s website. There are seventeen Ibis hotels, all over the country, mostly out West, in California, Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. This is their first property in the South. Each of the hotels has a different name and theme, keyed to the location. I printed out photos I found of their hotels in Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. I think they go for a pretty eclectic, bohemian look.”
“You did all that? Today? On top of packing up my stuff?”
“I also finished off one of the oyster-shell chandeliers for Saturday.”
“How many do we have left to do?”
“Two.”
Cara groaned. “Then I guess I better go fire up the glue gun, huh?”
62
Jack found Libba in the barn Wednesday morning. She’d left the big sliding doors open, and she was standing in front of one of the windows, staring out at the pasture, where a mare and her foal drank from a galvanized watering trough.
She turned at the sound of his footsteps. It seemed to him that Libba Strayhorn had aged ten years since he’d seen her last. Her gray-streaked hair was pushed behind her ears, and the sunlight revealed the network of fine lines and creases radiating out from her warm gray eyes and downturned mouth.
“The wedding is off, Jack.”
“I heard.”
“Already? Yeah, what am I saying? The gossip mill in Savannah must be working overtime.”
“Ryan’s mother-in-law, Lillian, is friends with Marie Trapnell,” he said.
“I should call Marie,” Libba murmured. “Let her know I don’t blame her.”
Libba thrust her hands in the back pocket of her jeans. “Right now, I feel like a big old fool putting all this time and money and work into this place. Libba’s Folly, that’s what the neighbors around here have been calling it, and they haven’t even gotten the word yet that the wedding is off.”
Jack set his toolbox down on the floor. “I don’t know what to say, Libba. How is Harris dealing with all this?”
“About like you’d expect. He’s crushed. Hurt.” Her laugh was bitter. “Pissed off. He and Brooke lived together for six years. Six years! That girl was like family to all of us. Nobody understands it.”
Jack nodded. “Uh, we don’t have to finish the work here if you don’t want to. We can leave off tiling the bathroom. The kitchen fixtures have been delivered, but I can probably send them back and just pay a shipping and restocking fee.”
“No,” Lillian said sharply. “Mitch and I talked about this last night. We want you to go ahead and finish everything, just as planned. Harris is going to get past this. We’ll all get past it. He will find somebody who has her head on straight and eventually get married to a girl who can appreciate what she’s found in him. Holly has a new boyfriend, and that’s gotten pretty serious. They will get married, and eventually we will have a large time right here. And someday, my grandbabies are going to laugh and run and play in this barn.”
With that, Libba Strayhorn burst into tears.
Not knowing what else to do, Jack awkwardly patted her back.
Libba took a crumpled tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. “Please forgive a crazy old fool. I know this must be embarrassing for you. Go on and do what you need to do. I’ll get out of your way in a few minutes.”
“It’s okay,” Jack said. He hesitated. “I don’t know if this is any consolation, but earlier this year, my live-in girlfriend left me, too. It came out of nowhere. She met some other dude and blew town with him. At first, I was destroyed. I mean, what the hell? But then … the longer she was gone, the more I saw that things hadn’t been going that great between us. We didn’t have much in common. Zoey wanted me to be somebody I wasn’t. This sounds mean, but when I look back on it now, I realize we were just a habit. She did me a favor by leaving. But it still hurts like hell when the other person does what she did.”
“Don’t I know it,” Libba said, sniffing. “What happened to the girlfriend?”
Jack rolled his eyes. “She’s back in town, pestering the hell out of me. I let her stay at my place one night, while I was away, and now she keeps turning up, claiming she’s just visiting the dog. I’m gonna have to get the locks changed to keep her out.”
“But I gather you were able to move on,” Libba prompted.
“A couple months ago, I met somebody new.” His face darkened. “Okay, I don’t know where I was going with this, because that didn’t have such a happy ending either.”
“Cara?” Libba asked gently.
“Yeah.”
“You two broke up? Already? I’m so sorry. She’s a lovely girl. A joy to work with, and so creative.”
“She’s all of that,” Jack admitted.
“Do you mind my asking what happened?”
He made a helpless gesture. “The thing is, I don’t know what happened. One minute, things were going great. We had fun together, we like the same things. We even have the same kind of dog. Cara has had some bad luck and tough times, financially, and it seemed like everything was coming down on her at once. I wanted to help out. Her shop is in this cool old building downtown on West Jones Street, and some asshole was gonna buy it and put Cara out on the street, out of professional jealousy. It just happens that I used to take piano lessons from the old lady who owned the place. I went to see her and I guess I sort
of sweet-talked her a little because I was able to outbid the other guy.”
“That’s so thoughtful,” Libba said.
“I thought so,” Jack said wryly. “But apparently I was mistaken. I kept it a secret because I wanted to surprise Cara. The building hadn’t been maintained at all, and it needs a lot of work, but I thought we could work on it together, you know? Really transform the place.”
Libba squeezed his arm. “You could make anything awesome. I still can’t get over the miracle you worked with this old barn. That’s the one good thing that came out of all this. I’m just telling myself I didn’t lose a daughter-in-law, I gained a fabulous barn.”
“Thanks, but that’s not how Cara saw it. She was mad as hell. Furious. Accused me of going behind her back, and making some sinister power play to get control of her and her business. She actually thought I was going to jack up the rent on her after making the improvements, and when I insisted I wasn’t, that pissed her off even more, because she said I was insinuating she couldn’t pay her own way.”
He shook his head again. “I just don’t get it. I did this for her. Out of, you know…”
“Love?” Libba raised one eyebrow.
“I guess.”
“Had you two talked about your feelings, or how serious things had gotten between you?”
“Not really. I didn’t think we needed to. I mean, we were together, and it was going good.…”
“And then you bought her building, out of love.” Libba laughed. “Some guys would have settled for a nice piece of jewelry, Jack.”
He looked confused. “Why would Cara want jewelry? She was going to lose her shop, and her apartment. Her father’s breathing down her neck to repay him some money she owes him, and this seemed like a good solution.”
“I’ll tell you a little story, Jack. Back in the early eighties, Mitch and I had been married a couple of years, and we were renting a crummy garage apartment on Washington Avenue, when I got pregnant with Harris. One day, some friend told Mitch about a little fixer-upper in Kensington Park, so he went to see it on his lunch hour, then came home that night and proudly announced he’d bought us a house.”
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